Tagged: total

Determining exactly how many individuals there are in the world that are affected by Parkinson’s is a difficult task. Previously, a lot of ‘gues-stimation’ has been used in these quantitative efforts. But a clearer idea of the geographical, national and regional spread of Parkinson’s burden, could provide us with very useful information to help better understand the condition.

The Global Burden Disease Collaborators conducted a world-wide assessment of Parkinson’s burden in 2016, and this week the results of their study were published. The findings make for interesting reading.

In today’s post, we will review the results and discuss what they mean for the Parkinson’s community.

This is one of those classic ‘boy meets girl’ stories… but with a ‘saves the world’-kind of twist to it.

Having just graduated from Duke University (with a degree in computer science and economics) in the summer of 1986, Melinda Ann French began working as an intern for IBM. Having learnt to program (in Basic) on Apple II computers during her teens, she was interested in a future career in the developing world of computer technology.

She eventually scored a job with a new company called Microsoft, and for the next 6 years she climbed the corporate ladder, from a software marketing position to general manager of information products (such as Microsoft Bob, Expedia, and Encarta).

Melinda met William (Bill) Henry Gates III four months after starting her job at Microsoft – they happened to sit next to each other at a trade-fair dinner in New York. But several months would pass by before Bill actually asked her out on a date.

They were married in Hawaii on New Years day 1994.

In 2000, the couple launched the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation – which has gone on to become one of the largest private foundations in the world with US$50+ billion in assets.

Excuse me, this is all very interesting, but what does it have to do with Parkinson’s?